Progressives de Blasio and Ocasio-Cortez at war of words over Amazon pullout

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) speaks to the media Thursday about Amazon scrapping its plans to build a new headquarters in Queens. (Mark Wilson / Getty Images)

The Amazon blame game continued Friday with Mayor de Blasio ripping into corporate critic Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, saying the popular Queens congresswoman is missing what it means to be a progressive.

“As a progressive my entire life — and I ain’t changing — I’ll take on any progressive anywhere that thinks it’s a good idea to lose jobs and revenue because I think that’s out of touch with what working people want,” the mayor said on WNYC radio.

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De Blasio, a self-styled progressive with national ambitions, was an equal opportunity critic, spewing barbs at both Amazon for nixing a job-rich headquarters deal, and the elected antagonists who drove the company away.

In an interview on “The Brian Lehrer Show,” the mayor, in response to Ocasio-Cortez’s reaction to the Amazon pullout, called her gloating a mistake.

“I came up watching the mistakes of progressives of the past, unfortunately what happened in this city when it almost went to bankruptcy in the 1970s,” de Blasio said. “I saw all the times progressives did not show people effective governance and all the times progressives made the kinds of mistakes that alienated working people.”

“Working people are very smart and very discerning,” the mayor added. “They want jobs, they want revenue, they want the kinds of things that government can do for them. They understand they have to be paid for.”

Ocasio-Cortez has hailed Amazon’s reversal as a victory over corporate greed. She also had a word for critics who have called her a job killer, though it was not clear if she was tweeting about de Blasio.

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“Come for me all you want,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted hours after de Blasio’s diss. “But my job is to make sure that people are protected in society. Someone’s got to look out for the people our system is leaving behind — esp now, when most of the wealth created is going to fewer people, those left behind are the majority of Americans.”